


The Favour

by johanna_blum



Category: Highlander - All Media Types, The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 11:50:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7639093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johanna_blum/pseuds/johanna_blum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>waiting and shadows and angst play tricks on the mind, or don't they?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Favour

Evening was drawing near. The harvest sun golden and warm, shining evenly on grass, rubble and excavator. Reflecting back from the mirror of a bulldozer.

Outside the unfinished building a poster announced that within soon there would be affordable apartments for rent, the image including park benches, trees and happy children playing on a playground.

Currently the building was more the ghost of its future self.

 

A man stood, concealed behind a window, on the first floor.

A shiver ran down his spine, a warning, he knew. However not the expected prickling at the base of his neck announcing an immortal presence. Not the one he was looking out for, then...

He peeked out of the window but didn't see anyone approaching the building.

Quickly he crossed the room to the opposite window and took a glance. It didn't reveal any movement, either. Just rubble and construction equipment and behind that, untended land where some last summer flowers glowed in exuberant colors. To his right a small grove, which would expand westwards of the building side.

If someone was to try forgoing the doors, it would be from here, up the scaffold and in through the 4th floor.

Uneasy he went back to the first window.

 

The Building stood on slightly elevated terrain, giving a good overview of the land surrounding it, with some open space between the main road and the clutter of the building side, the only road leading to it overseeable from his position.

Sun fell through the windows, dust-mots playing in the air. Nothing had changed from a minute before.

Yet, there it was - a growing sense of dread, diffuse and ubiquitous.

He took a deep breath, focusing on his surroundings. So, it wasn't an immortal, certainly not the one he was waiting for, anyway. And there weren't any mortals around either, the building ground was abandoned – he´d made sure of that.

Still, an alarming awareness of something wrong filled his senses.

 

In the corners the shadows seemed to grow darker. Cautiously he began to check the raw building again, sword drawn, holding it against the darkness. An instinctive response, forgoing the gun striped to his ankle.

First he went downstairs to check the doors. He was sure no one had walked through the unlocked side-entrance he´d been watching. The main entrance and the door that led to the basements and future garage were locked and unbreached. All the windows closed and intact.

Up the staircase again to the next floor.

Despite just coming from it he surveyed the 1st floor again, taking a glance through the windows as he passed them. He made a quick circuit, movements fast and efficient but didn't find anything that would have set his alarms off.

The 2nd floor held no surprises either.

Moving up though, the feeling that something was off, intensified.

On the landing to the 3rd floor there was an opening between the not yet finished walls, where the door to the hall would be. There in the corner, back to the wall he took a moment and closed his eyes. Focusing on his breath. It seemed extreme loud in the stillness of air and dust. There had been no sound, he realized. Hadn't been any on the ground floor, nor the other ones. None now. There weren't any footsteps, no rustling of cloth, no breathing, beside his own.

On the 4.th floor the windows were holes through which sun and scent flared in. Absorbing and dismissing the sounds of the outside world he went through the hall.

Sweat beads formed on his forehead, tickled his brow. Movement seemed to evade his eyes as he stalked hideouts. But every corner turned out empty. He found nothing. Just shadows playing tricks, he informed his mind.

Yet adrenalin was pushing itself through his veins and his breathing came a bit faster as he frustratingly found himself back on the entrance again. Absolutely nothing.

Maybe there wasn't anything to be found and he was just overreacting. Still senses sharpened over millennia insisted that someone was there.

So he moved to the next floor. If he didn't find anything however, he vowed to himself, he would simply abort the plan, leave ground and building behind as fast as he could and think of something else...

Good plan, that. He should probably just turn around and go…. why argue with senses he spend so much time to perfect, after all...

He reached the 5th floor and expected sky and treetops in the distance, where the room still missed a wall. But there, in the opening, faced to the west, a dark figure stood. His back to him. Unmoving. Black against the almost blinding light of the dying day.

Methos instincts yelled at him to flee.

But this man wasn't someone you would or could run from. Without taking his gaze from the figure ahead he sheathed his sword – it wouldn't do him any good anyway.

Wearily, he took a step forward.

“You owe me a favor” the figure said.

Methos stopped, thoughts racing. Finally nodding in assumed acceptance. Even if it wasn't true, it wouldn't be wise, to disagree with one of the Endless.

“I don't think we met” he tried.

The figure turned his head, the light throwing stark contrasts of black and white.

“You do know, whom you are speaking to?” the voice all edges – hinting at the cutting sharpness of breaking glass.

“Yes” a nod. Methos eyes never leaving the others face. “I believe I do.”

A questioning eyebrow and a slightly curious glint invited further words.

“the sandman, shaper of dreams and shifter of shadows.....Oneiros, Morpheus, Phobetor, Breksta, Tezcatlipoca....”

A nod of acknowledgment.

Somewhere birds were chirping, the siren of an ambulance ebbed away in the distance.

“Like you Methos, I go by many names...like you I changed through time, and like you I died over and over again when there wasn't any further I could change. I redefined myself to live again”

The light was almost gone, the shadows more evident

“You toke the place of my sister once” a considering look.

Methos paled. Expression drawn, lips pressed together he starred into Dreams eyes. Stars seemed to dance there. Just a moment, then it was gone. He blinked and averted his gaze.

“Oh well, that..ahm... it was a very long, long time ago...you know... rebellious teenage angst and all that “ a shrug. His posture seemed to slouch in itself.

An embarrassed smile working its way to his lips. Youthful awkwardness trying to hide again what he couldn't afford to expose.

 

“I do need you now.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea you see, and it wouldn't leave. So I started to write it down. Backwards somehow, I followed it to the beginning, a beginning anyway.  
> It is my first fanfiction so please let me know what I could have done better, where I went wrong, or what doesn't make sense. So I really can become better.  
> Thank you  
> I hope you did enjoy the read


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